The present invention is generally related to teaching aids and, more particularly, is related to liquid measurement teaching aids.
It is desirable for young children and individuals that are mentally challenged, to learn information about spatial relationships and measurements and, in particular, about liquid measurements. Such knowledge is useful in cooking and grocery and reading recipes.
Teaching dimensional relationships to groups of students, such as in a classroom environment, often has created difficulties, both from the instructor""s ability to easily demonstrate visually the information he or she is attempting to convey, and the ability of the student to see and understand such visual information. Hitherto, education about liquid measurements has been conducted by means of lecture or explanation assisted by reference to printed literature, slides, videos, charts and posters, sometimes assisted by use of white or blackboards and the like.
The prior art teaching aids suffer from a number of disadvantages. xe2x80x9cTalk and chalkxe2x80x9d methods and those referring to illustrative diagrams are not effective to convey the relationship between various sizes and shapes of standard liquid measurements. In addition, known teaching aids may not readily arrest attention, especially of children, for a sufficiently long span of time. Moreover, such models are of little assistance in relating the liquid measurements to a real-life example of how such measurement would be used.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned and/or other deficiencies and inadequacies.
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for facilitating the teaching of students about liquid measurements. Briefly described, one embodiment of the system, among others, includes a model of a liquid gallon container, the gallon model comprising a front and a back; four models of a liquid quart container affixed to said gallon model, at least one of the quart models comprising a front and a back; at least two models of a liquid pint container affixed to at least one quart model, at least one of the pint models comprising a front and a back; and two models of a liquid cup container affixed to the back of said pint model.
The present invention can also be viewed as providing methods for teaching students, particularly about liquid measurements and relating it to a real-life example. In this regard, one embodiment of such a method, among others, can be broadly summarized by the steps of using a teaching aid, wherein the teaching aid includes the models described above.
The present invention has numerous advantages, a few of which are delineated hereafter as mere examples. The teaching aid is large enough to be seen by a group of students, and the models are configured in such a way that the students can relate the liquid measurements to objects that they see everyday, e.g., a gallon jug and quart-sized carton. Additionally, by directly relating the physical models to each other, students are able to more easily grasp the idea of how measurements relate to each other.
Other advantages of the invention are that it is simple in design, user friendly, robust and reliable during use, and easily implemented for mass commercial production. Clearly, some embodiments of the invention may exhibit advantages in addition to or lieu of, those mentioned above. Additionally, other methods, features, and advantages of the present invention will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following drawings and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional methods, features, and advantages be included within this description, be within the scope of the present invention, and be protected by the accompanying claims.